Oscar Piastri laments ‘bizarre and somewhat frustrating’ quali

Oscar Piastri was left frustrated follow qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix after missing out on pole position to Charles Leclerc.

The McLaren driver will line up second on the grid for Sunday’s race after missing out on top spot by 0.026s.

Oscar Piastri left to rue tricky qualifying after mid-session win change

Leclerc stunned with his lap as the chequered flag waved at the end of qualifying, rising to the top of the pile in a session that was expected to produce a McLaren pole.

Instead, Piastri could do no better than second with team-mate Lando Norris third, just 0.015s off a berth on the front row.

The papaya duo had topped all three practice sessions leading into the all-important qualifying hour, where they were usurped by Leclerc.

“Charles has been quick all weekend,” Piastri ventured. “Even this morning he was closer than we expected. Things just changed a little bit and I guess he did a very good job. So yeah, well done to him.

“I wasn’t expecting to be second to a Ferrari this weekend, but he’s done a good job. It’s going to be a fun race tomorrow with a bit more involved.”

While practice took place under bright sunny skies, conditions had turned ahead of qualifying. Cloud cover saw temperatures drop, while a brief sprinkling of rain fell on the circuit in the early moments of Qualifying 2.

Coupled with a change in the wind direction, the championship leader admitted he was caught out by the conditions.

“The wind changed a lot. It always sounds so pathetic blaming things on the wind, but the wind basically did a 180 from Q2 to Q3,” he explained.

“It just meant a lot of the corners felt completely different. My first lap in Q3 felt pretty terrible because I wasn’t used to it. And then I thought the second lap was a lot better, but it was even slower. So yeah, just difficult to judge in those conditions and maybe not the best execution, but I was a bit surprised that we couldn’t go quicker than that.”

Even with the difficulties, Piastri fell agonisingly short of what would have been his fifth pole of the season. Instead, Leclerc stole it from under McLaren’s nose in a dramatic conclusion to the qualifying hour.

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“Depends where you’re sat,” the Aussie said when asked for his thoughts on the session’s conclusion. “If you’re sat where Charles is, fantastic. If you’re sat where I’m sat, bizarre and somewhat frustrating.

“My first lap felt terrible because I was pushing too much and kind of with the wind direction from the first two sessions in mind. So, then I felt like I did a better job on the second lap of managing expectations, and it was even worse.

“A bizarre session, but I need to look back and see what differences it made. Things definitely felt more tricky for myself as well in Q3, but I think for everybody it would have been difficult. So that’s not our excuse.

Despite the setback, Piastri remains on the front row, affording him an opportunity to launch an attack on Leclerc into Turn 1 in Sunday’s race. He’s also a position ahead of team-mate and title-rival Norris.

It leaves the 25-year-old, who claimed his maiden F1 race win in Hungary a year ago, confident of repeating that feat.

“It was good last year, so hopefully it can be good again this year,” he said of starting second.

There’s some rain around. We’ll see if that impacts the race. But I think our pace has been good, but Charles has been quick all weekend, in certain sessions.

“It is a very difficult track to overtake on, and it’s not going to be the easiest place to try and regain the lead.”

Read more: ‘Absolutely useless’ Lewis Hamilton tells Ferrari to ‘change driver’ after another poor quali